DESCRIPTIONS OF A HARBOUR for Roberto Montenegro 1. Dawn With heavy colours the seascape paints itself. Things are asleep. Arising, dawn looks like a bubble over the sea.

THE BIG LIES   The big lies don’t really have short legs. Their legs only appear to be short because their arms are so long. The arms of

WORDS How false or worn out they yet may be, some words remain as hidden traces etched in the soul that even time is unable to erase. GERMAIN

  CHRISTMAS Since the sky is empty, the earth has become fuller with a thousand electric stars and bargains that retailers use to tempt. Shepherds preach a lot—

INFORMATION ON POEMS A poem is sometimes a timid hand, reaching out in the dark to a fellow being. You there, I’m here. I’m happy, I suffer, I’m

I WRITE I write after sundown at home. I write about the morning when I listened to the sound of the lime or to the fire, and only

MY FATHER IS LIGHT My father is as light as a flower when he falls in autumn like the leaves of the book which he ever read in

WORDS As many before me, I wrote I love you in the wet sand and also drew there a heart. As many before me, I saw how the

ELKE REHDER, 1942, EXIL, STEFAN ZWEIG EXILE HURTS Far away, freedom calls and here exile corrodes, threatens us, envelops us, penetrates us, and stabs as if it were

DON’T COUNT ME AMONG THE ALMONDS Make me bitter, count me with the almonds —Paul Celan Don’t count me among them, don’t count me with what was bitter